DenisVengeance:I love interns. They work their asses off on projects my guys don't have time for during the year, and in exchange they get to say they worked for a Fortune 100 company on their resume. Win Win.

What I'm getting from this article is this: We're not really sure what the local schools are communicating to their students.But whatever it is, and it is not our responsibility to know or to get involved, they are doing a lousy job at preparing them to work at our highly specialized company for zero dollars.

Even this guy's name, Rainer Flor, makes him sound like a jackass. Such a surprise that this guy, who is trying to screw free work, coding, out of interns, is upset that he isn't getting everything he wants, particularly after his company has gone to such great lengths to not know anything about the local schools.

It sounds to me like this Echo Interaction Group would be a wonderful place to work for free if you are looking to get experience dealing with an insufferable douche bag.

Antagonism:Harry_Seldon: Lochsteppe: Harry_Seldon: I work for a large tech company. We budget and hire a large significant number of interns and recent college graduates. Our expectations for interns is that we train them do do productive work. We train them to be successful in a rapidly evolving environment. We see interns as an investment int the future, not a profit center. We, as management, take time to train and mentor, provide a comfortable environment, and low stress. By the end of their one year internship, they are prepared to be productive employees, and not necessarily for my company.

That's pretty cool. I'd love to see more companies take (or restart) that approach.

I have two interns working on a summer project right now to add some features to a an open source software application we are extending for internal use. I have no expectations that they actually complete anything, but I do expect them to learn how to work, take initiative, and tell me how they are going to attack their problems. I think we pay them $20/hr.

One thing that never gets mentioned about intern value, they provide a situation for us to give management opportunities for our junior level permanent staff, and grow their skills. It is all a process. Our employees really are our most valuable resource.

BTW, I work for one of the top ten tech firms. Think Google, Microsoft.

craig328:Point is: too many businesses demand skillsets that sometimes cannot even exist. I have flogged this horse for years on a few tech forums I frequent. It will never change.

THIS. I've seen a number of jobs ads wanting more years of experience with a product (or version) than it's actually existed for. It's also typical for them to require multiple years of experience in something you'd learn thoroughly in no more than one.

Too many are like this:

Interviewer: "Have you ever driven a Ford car?"Applicant: "Not a Ford one, but other brands of course. I have a license and a clean driving record."Interviewer: "Have you ever driven a red car?"Applicant: "Well, no, not a red one, specifically. Various other colors."Interviewer: "I see. Have you ever driven to [location]?"Applicant: "Yes, I drive by there every day."Interview: "For how long?"Applicant: "Well... I guess for about 6 months now."Interviewer: "I see. I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, but we're looking for someone with 3 years' experience driving a 2011 model red Ford to [location]. Thank you coming in."

Are there actually unpaid technical internships? I didn't even realize internships weren't often paid until I talked to other (non engineering) friends about it. I still don't understand how that's even legal.

gerbilpox:craig328:Point is: too many businesses demand skillsets that sometimes cannot even exist. I have flogged this horse for years on a few tech forums I frequent. It will never change.

THIS. I've seen a number of jobs ads wanting more years of experience with a product (or version) than it's actually existed for. It's also typical for them to require multiple years of experience in something you'd learn thoroughly in no more than one.

Too many are like this:

Interviewer: "Have you ever driven a Ford car?"Applicant: "Not a Ford one, but other brands of course. I have a license and a clean driving record."Interviewer: "Have you ever driven a red car?"Applicant: "Well, no, not a red one, specifically. Various other colors."Interviewer: "I see. Have you ever driven to [location]?"Applicant: "Yes, I drive by there every day."Interview: "For how long?"Applicant: "Well... I guess for about 6 months now."Interviewer: "I see. I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, but we're looking for someone with 3 years' experience driving a 2011 model red Ford to [location]. Thank you coming in."

I hate that one. I'm looking for a Chemist job right now. I get asked if I used a specific instrument type, specific model, running specific software. I tell them yes to those three condition, when I was doing research. They blow it off and say it is not industry experience and then tell me that even though I have an MS, I pretty much count like an inexperienced person with a BS that never used the instruments. It really irks me because the industry stuff is easier because it is looking for known stuff like certain known pollutants and comparing with standards. In research I was looking through a reaction mixture of god only knows what for my stuff and having to figure out most of what was there to find out what happened in the reaction.

Look. No one, especially engineers, knows how to hire anyone. That is the major failing with all these tech companies. I know, because I worked at one. ("Think Google, Microsoft.")

You need to hire people who get the job done and get it done right. You don't need some fark who knows how to traverse a binary tree or little bit-shifting tricks, and you don't need some ass who knows how the .NET garbage collector works.

This is how you hire a competent software engineer:After asking basic programming questions and having them write very simple code...Give them a moderately complex piece of Ikea furniture (that you can disassemble again easily) and tell them to put it together. Even better, give them two pieces, one with instructions, one without (I actually have a half dozen variations on this theme, but won't bother detailing them now). If they put it together quickly and correctly, and ask questions when appropriate, they're hired. If they fark around, leave parts out, and put pieces on upside down, show them the door.

You are measuring whether they can:* complete an assignment* follow a spec* bring problems to management's attention* ask for needed resources (like tools)* do a quality job* be creative when necessary

Best of all, it requires no knowledge of any specific computer technology. If the person is weak or disabled, offer to assemble the pieces for them based on their instructions.

While I have never tested this in real life, I know it will work. I know this because I had a PhD roommate who could not put Ikea furniture together without having upside down pieces or leftover parts. I would never hire him as an engineer in a million years; book smarts don't mean shiat when it comes to completing work correctly. Lock him in an office and let him play with his little algorithms, but when I actually need real work done, I'm not going to him.

Also, after developing this idea, I sat down and ran through all the people I worked with, and I knew exactly who would fail to put the furniture together -- all the people who did slow, shiatty work, made excuses, and caused problems for others. I am convinced my method would be far more effective than all the other interview questions I have ever had COMBINED.

(I also have a method for interviewing prospective QA software engineers, but I'm not going into it here.)

Bottom line, you want employees and also interns who can figure out how to complete things, and don't do it in some insane manner. That's all. So don't give them the opportunity to trick you with their credentials, or by regurgitating buzzwords or a book chapter they happened to read, and don't let them prepare by scouring the internet for every brainteaser in existence (which is how I got my job at unspecified large tech company; don't worry, I did real work, which is why they kept me and promoted me). Give them a real, technology-agnostic problem to solve and see how they perform.

FormlessOne:FTA: "We want interns that we can roll into full-time positions, but they're not coming out prepared," Bonaccorso said. "We're an entertainment-based website that's expanding, and local colleges should love to work on our stuff, as we need more tech and social-media people."

Actually, that's exactly what they're saying - the "out" in that sentence refers to the school supplying the interns. They're saying that they want interns that can walk in and be able to do a full-time job.

I read that very differently. When we hire full on contractors for my team, I would use similar lingo (usually along the lines of "flip to full time employees", rather than "roll into" but it's a similar gist), and I expect to spend seven weeks training people that are already qualified as UNIX, Windows, or Oracle admins with several years of prior experience.

To me his phrase means he wants people with a foundation that will make them feasible candidates in the future, once they complete their internship, but he's getting people that don't have even the most basic fundamentals.

FTFA:John Bonaccorso, founder of 15 Seconds to Fame, an Orlando-based website for singers, comedians, animators, short-film producers and others, has hired three former interns from UCF but said finding qualified interns is a "mixed bag."

"We want interns that we can roll into full-time positions, but they're not coming out prepared," Bonaccorso said. "We're an entertainment-based website that's expanding, and local colleges should love to work on our stuff, as we need more tech and social-media people."

Let's transcribe that into a different occupational setting and see how stupid it looks:

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, rifleman of the USMC, a Quantico-based organization for infantrymen, artillerymen, pilots, tankers and others, has hired 80 former recruits fresh from American high schools but said finding qualified recruits is a "mixed bag."

"We want recruits that we can roll into combat positions, but they're not coming out (of high school) prepared," Hartman said. "We're a military force that's expanding, and local high schoolers should love to work on our stuff, as we need more athletic and outdoorsy people."

What makes it look idiotic when an hypothetical Marine says it? Because, unlike our fast-paced businessmen, the gunny understands that you can't just "roll" people out of a school and into the combat zone and scratch your idiot, fast-paced businessman head wondering why they ain't "up to snuff". You have to engage in a mystical, high-tech process called "training". I don't understand what that is, but that's natural as our fast-paced businessmen are smarter than me and they don't know either. Somebody needs to help them. Volunteers?

Gelatinous:Give them a moderately complex piece of Ikea furniture (that you can disassemble again easily) and tell them to put it together.

You could learn a substantial amount about people applying for regular office grunt positions by having them help disassemble one, as well. Speed, precision, basic analysis skills, taking orders, humor, a bit of analness are all appreciated, sloppiness and breakage obviously not.

gerbilpox:THIS. I've seen a number of jobs ads wanting more years of experience with a product (or version) than it's actually existed for. It's also typical for them to require multiple years of experience in something you'd learn thoroughly in no more than one.

I've facepalmed a few times on Dice when I come across an ad demanding those skills for a product with a year in its name. It's 2006 and you want me to have 3 years of experience with Visual Studio 2005 and .Net 2? Really? Do you even read your own copy out loud? Alternately attaching to a product a year or version that has never existed.

But fortunately those are much more rare these days. More commonly, they just don't understand the technology at all, asking for mixed up things like "Apache NoSQL" or "PHP Servlets."

When I was a graduate student, I had two undergrads doing research hours in my lab at my direction. One I had performing computer modeling simulations. The other, who had experience in chemistry by doing research hours in my lab previously under another graduate student, I had performing suspersaturation precipitation experiments.

Long story short...I blew them both out after one semester because it became obvious in short order that I was never going to recoup the effort I would have put into training them. It was bad enough that when the chemistry one asked me what she wanted me to do, I pointed her to the starting material for the experiment, but directed her to in advance divide the starting material in half...because I knew she'd ruin it. And I didn't want her to ruin it all. Sure enough, she ruined it. How hard is it to heat up a flask of solvent until a material dissolves in it without boiling it over? Too hard, evidently. The other one I had doing molecular dynamics simulations of CO2-derivatized molecules. Of the dozen or so molecules he built into the simulation, there was a grand total of ZERO of them that had the correct structure.

When I was a graduate student, I had two undergrads doing research hours in my lab at my direction. One I had performing computer modeling simulations. The other, who had experience in chemistry by doing research hours in my lab previously under another graduate student, I had performing suspersaturation precipitation experiments.

Long story short...I blew them both out after one semester because it became obvious in short order that I was never going to recoup the effort I would have put into training them. It was bad enough that when the chemistry one asked me what she wanted me to do, I pointed her to the starting material for the experiment, but directed her to in advance divide the starting material in half...because I knew she'd ruin it. And I didn't want her to ruin it all. Sure enough, she ruined it. How hard is it to heat up a flask of solvent until a material dissolves in it without boiling it over? Too hard, evidently. The other one I had doing molecular dynamics simulations of CO2-derivatized molecules. Of the dozen or so molecules he built into the simulation, there was a grand total of ZERO of them that had the correct structure.

/not csb time

So what you're saying is that a college laboratory is not the place for undergraduates to learn how to do laboratory work?

Lochsteppe:Harry_Seldon: I work for a large tech company. We budget and hire a large significant number of interns and recent college graduates. Our expectations for interns is that we train them do do productive work. We train them to be successful in a rapidly evolving environment. We see interns as an investment int the future, not a profit center. We, as management, take time to train and mentor, provide a comfortable environment, and low stress. By the end of their one year internship, they are prepared to be productive employees, and not necessarily for my company.

That's pretty cool. I'd love to see more companies take (or restart) that approach.

It's not the interns that are stupid.

The stupidity is with the short-sighted shareholders that dump stock because they feel that money invested in developing team members and for the future is money down the drain. They want their dividends NOW, dammit!!

DenisVengeance:I love interns. They work their asses off on projects my guys don't have time for during the year, and in exchange they get to say they worked for a Fortune 100 company on their resume. Win Win.

Yeah this. You just have to be selective about recruiting them. I work with a couple of interns who are super-bright and promising. And, we are teaching them more in 15 hours a week than they learned in their undergraduate program. And yes, the experience on their resume is incredibly valuable for them.

Unrelated to anything, I remember once when a very young geeky intern tracked down a special case defect in some of my code. He was almost apologetic, which I thought was cute. He didn't know how to fix it, but we worked it out together in a few minutes. He asked if I wanted to check in the fix (thus publicly taking the credit from him). I laughed and and told him no, you tracked it down, you check it in.

ThrobblefootSpectre:DenisVengeance: I love interns. They work their asses off on projects my guys don't have time for during the year, and in exchange they get to say they worked for a Fortune 100 company on their resume. Win Win.

Yeah this. You just have to be selective about recruiting them. I work with a couple of interns who are super-bright and promising. And, we are teaching them more in 15 hours a week than they learned in their undergraduate program. And yes, the experience on their resume is incredibly valuable for them.

Let's see, how would you like to work for nothing, or next to nothing, with no guarantee of being trained to do anything useful, or any guarantee of full time employment, the only dubious benefit being "experience" to add to a resume?

Yup, super talented and intelligent people will all jump at a chance like that. Do any of you "genius" business people see the problem with the above?

Yes, of course. They are on a graduated scale, just like staff engineers. The interns with a BS to their name and working on a master's get paid more than the undergrad interns.

And every single one of the will tell you they want the experience far more than they want the pay. The best and brightest of them would intern for free for this reason. Being able to put a big name organization, and have honest to goodness professional references on your resume when you graduate is worth at least as much as what they are paying to the school for 4 years of tuition. Sometimes more. It will probably be worth hundreds of thousands in salary cumulative over the next ten years to them. It's only a very small percentage of students who have this sort of common sense though.

Fissile:Yup, super talented and intelligent people will all jump at a chance like that

Yes. They definitely will. I have been mentoring bright low paid interns for 15 years now. We generally have stacks of interested potentials from any given "job fair" at a university. We select maybe 2 out of hundreds each year who want in in the door.

ThrobblefootSpectre:Fissile: Yup, super talented and intelligent people will all jump at a chance like that

Yes. They definitely will. I have been mentoring bright low paid interns for 15 years now. We generally have stacks of interested potentials from any given "job fair" at a university. We select maybe 2 out of hundreds each year who want in in the door.

=============

Check your machine, genius.

Has it ever occurred to you that it's because of people like you that American business is going down the shiat-hole?

I've never understood interns. You take out massive loans to go to school, then take a job where you're not even paid. Why not go the co-op route instead?

I did co-op for 3 years. Sure, I had to take a few summer classes and extend my graduation date a bit, but I came out with years of real-world experience and skills on my resume (not coffee-fetching and advanced copier operation) and money in the bank.

Interviewer: "Have you ever driven a Ford car?"Applicant: "Not a Ford one, but other brands of course. I have a license and a clean driving record."Interviewer: "Have you ever driven a red car?"Applicant: "Well, no, not a red one, specifically. Various other colors."Interviewer: "I see. Have you ever driven to [location]?"Applicant: "Yes, I drive by there every day."Interview: "For how long?"Applicant: "Well... I guess for about 6 months now."Interviewer: "I see. I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, but we're looking for someone with 3 years' experience driving a 2011 model red Ford to [location]. Thank you coming in."

===============

Years ago, I had the following conversation at a job interview:

Interviewer: Do you have experience with MS-DOS?

Me: I know CP/M.

Interviewer: I'm sorry, we are really looking for someone experienced with MS-DOS.

I saw the sarcasm. I wanted to let you know that what you said is actually the literal truth, and has been for decades.

Fissile:Has it ever occurred to you that it's because of people like you that American business is going down the shiat-hole?

Lol. A growing economy which is the largest and one of the most productive per capita in the world is "going down the shiat-hole"? Let me guess, you aren't getting a lot of 6 digit offers for your amazing creative skills and services, and you are bitter about that. Close?

SpacemanSpoof:I've never understood interns. You take out massive loans to go to school, then take a job where you're not even paid. Why not go the co-op route instead?

I did co-op for 3 years. Sure, I had to take a few summer classes and extend my graduation date a bit, but I came out with years of real-world experience and skills on my resume (not coffee-fetching and advanced copier operation) and money in the bank.

==============

And American businesses think they are being cleaver by exploiting the desperate and stupid for free labor.

Large German Company:

Interviewer: Yes, you seem to have the required education, experience and ability to learn. We will offer you this paid training position. After successful completion of this training position, you will be offered a permanent job at X salary.

Result: German company builds a productive and competent work force.

-----------------------------

Large American Company:

Interviewer: You have a good academic record, but we are very selective in who we choose to allow to work for our super important company. Working for our company is a great PRIVILEGE. We'll offer you the unpaid intern position with no guarantees of any training, or any offers of permanent paid employment. Even if this goes nowhere for you, and for 99.9% of our unpaid interns it goes nowhere, other lesser companies will be super impressed with seeing an internship with our company on your resume.

Result: Super important American companies whine endlessly about how they cant' find any workers, and all Americans are idiots, and government really needs to get off the backs of TBTF businesses and give them unrestricted H1B visas.

I saw the sarcasm. I wanted to let you know that what you said is actually the literal truth, and has been for decades.

Fissile: Has it ever occurred to you that it's because of people like you that American business is going down the shiat-hole?

Lol. A growing economy which is the largest and one of the most productive per capita in the world is "going down the shiat-hole"? Let me guess, you aren't getting a lot of 6 digit offers for your amazing creative skills and services, and you are bitter about that. Close?

=============

Right. I'm sure your super important, TBTF company is super important and too big to fail. That's why you won't mention the name in public.

BTW, the local cops (most are community college grads) are paid an average of $150K. So what's that prove? In the good ol' US of Murica, the correlation between talent/ability and compensation is less and less every year. That's why this country is toast. Need more proof? Just look at the compensation packages for Wall St execs, banksters, and GM/Chrysler CEOs. Like most super important employees, of super important businesses, you equate compensation with success. In the sane parts of the world, people equate competence/talent/ability with success.

Magnus:Full Sail officials said their students must complete 30 to 40 hours a week of lab time working with current technology and software.

That should read Full of Shiate officials...30 to 40 hours A WEEK of lab time? I doubt that.

Okay, Full Sail University is a web based computer art "university".

Now, what dumbass would invest their time and money with a company under the name Full Sail if the logo then involved an airplane. You know, something that has NO SAILS! They farking picked their logo out of a clip art CD.

Magnus:Full Sail officials said their students must complete 30 to 40 hours a week of lab time working with current technology and software.

That should read Full of Shiate officials...30 to 40 hours A WEEK of lab time? I doubt that.

Kid next store to me went to Full Sail.

/kid can't find work anywhere

wildcardjack:Magnus: Full Sail officials said their students must complete 30 to 40 hours a week of lab time working with current technology and software.

That should read Full of Shiate officials...30 to 40 hours A WEEK of lab time? I doubt that.

Okay, Full Sail University is a web based computer art "university".

[ww1.prweb.com image 442x354]

Now, what dumbass would invest their time and money with a company under the name Full Sail if the logo then involved an airplane. You know, something that has NO SAILS! They farking picked their logo out of a clip art CD.

Full Sail is one of the premier Media and Entertainment universities out there. It's not easy to get into. Yes, they do also offer online classes. But the actual campus is state of the art and a its a tough regimen to get through.

/kid next door went there after military service//can't find shiat for jobs (his fault of major and career path, I know)///I told him he should have gone to Apex Tech - got a blank stare (should have known)////get off my lawn, always wanted those tools you got to keep after your training

Sim Tree:Um, interns are supposed to be trained. That's why they're interns. If they already knew how to do the job, they would be called 'staff', and you would need to pay them to do it.

Weeners and it's absolutely on point. I agree. I work for myself now, but when I was employed as an editor for a publishing company, I would love working with the journalism major interns. The kids were eager to learn and I knew they had a passion for wanting to be in the publishing industry. I had faith in each one to teach them about the editing cycle, how to work with publicists, and more. I saw them as raw talent and treated them with ultimate respect. I wanted them to have the best chance of launching a solid career. And if I wanted coffee, I got it myself.

wildcardjack:Magnus: Full Sail officials said their students must complete 30 to 40 hours a week of lab time working with current technology and software.

That should read Full of Shiate officials...30 to 40 hours A WEEK of lab time? I doubt that.

Okay, Full Sail University is a web based computer art "university".

[ww1.prweb.com image 442x354]

Now, what dumbass would invest their time and money with a company under the name Full Sail if the logo then involved an airplane. You know, something that has NO SAILS! They farking picked their logo out of a clip art CD.

Logo is ok, I think I remember it being a sailboat a loooong time ago when it was a little tech school.

It's actually a good school with an amazing campus.Too bad tuition costs 10 kajillion dollars a second, plus breathing-their-air fees.

Orlando AIGA hosts lectures there quite a bit, wish I had such a nice place when I was in school.

1) New employees usually have to be trained, esp. if they're just out of college2) When you don't pay people to work, you get people who either don't need the money (so there's not much incentive to excel) or the dummies who couldn't get jobs or paid internships (which are relatively rare now)

It never ceases to amaze me how many people will out themselves as complete clueless morons by continuously spouting something about how "interns don't get paid" this far down the thread. Newsflash, it's not 1980 anymore. An unpaid internship is far more rare than a trustworthy politician.

kiwichan:It never ceases to amaze me how many people will out themselves as complete clueless morons by continuously spouting something about how "interns don't get paid" this far down the thread. Newsflash, it's not 1980 anymore. An unpaid internship is far more rare than a trustworthy politician.

kiwichan:It never ceases to amaze me how many people will out themselves as complete clueless morons by continuously spouting something about how "interns don't get paid" this far down the thread. Newsflash, it's not 1980 anymore. An unpaid internship is far more rare than a trustworthy politician.

From what I've been reading, it's the exact opposite. Paid internships are less common now, because companies can get away with not paying by telling desperate college students they're getting valuable job experience. I guess you haven't been keeping up.

Nobody said there are no paid internships. But it is definitely not the norm everywhere.

craig328:Mensan: Business, on the other hand, says: "We want students fully trained for years on technology that was released to the public four months ago, and if they don't have three years of experience in technologies less than a year old, then academia is failing students."

Coincidentally, I turned down a contract opportunity just this afternoon because of this kind of mindset. They were insisting that I be proficient in a framework I, from the outset, said I had never used (but would be willing to pick up) and that was around a year old. I actually know one of the guys that contributes to the framework project and asked him how long it had been out. The contract wanted 2-3 years...he released it from beta about 12 months ago. Because I lacked a "core skill" the prospective contract was insisting I reduce my rate to compensate for my lack of experience.

My email was professional and polite and declined to take the contract. They emailed back asking me to reconsider. I didn't bother answering.

Point is: too many businesses demand skillsets that sometimes cannot even exist. I have flogged this horse for years on a few tech forums I frequent. It will never change.

I remember when looking for a tech job after the Dot-Com bubble burst, tech companies were looking for people with several years of .NET experience, which had only been in release for a few months at that point. I was also turned down for a job as a Visual Studio programmer, because I "only" had 5 years experience with VS 97 and 6.0. Nevermind that I had been working with VS97 and VS 6.0 since their release dates, I "lacked" enough experience to work on those platforms, according to the hiring manager...

Management and HR get so hung up on the latest buzzwords, and never actually bother to do basic research on the requirements they attach to job openings. They are idiots of the highest magnitude, and only care about how easy it will be for the company to exploit the new hires.

I cannot count the number of "new technologies" that I have seen in the course of my career that never lasted more than a year. Many of them had one purpose and one purpose only: to seem totally cool to some moron corporate executives, so that they'd drop a million or two on it. Later, when these execs figure out that their new toy doesn't actually do anything useful, they dump it and go with whatever the next salesman is hawking. Another problem is that they all too often listen to the advice of some big-bellied, lard-assed gaming idiot in the IT department, who, since graduating from some mall-based technical college three years ago, latches onto every shiny new thing that comes along, without regard to its applicability to real business needs.

kiwichan:It never ceases to amaze me how many people will out themselves as complete clueless morons by continuously spouting something about how "interns don't get paid" this far down the thread. Newsflash, it's not 1980 anymore. An unpaid internship is far more rare than a trustworthy politician.

Really? I'd like to see a citation or two on that. I read the entire thread, and I see no evidence that unpaid internships are rare. My understanding is that the number of unpaid internships has increased since the 1980s. I would be happy to provide you with a citation.